Alumni Executive Committee

2016 Paddock Lectures

The Paddock Lectures were founded in 1880 by General Seminary benefactor George A. Jarvis and named in memory of The Rt. Rev. Benjamin Henry Paddock, Bishop of Massachusetts and of the Class of 1852. The Lectures have brought to General's campus a remarkable group of Anglican scholars, including William Temple, Charles Henry Brent, Francis Joseph Hall, Owen Chadwick, John Mbiti, Norman Pittinger, and Sarah Coakley.

The Right Rev. Robert C. Wright is the 10thbishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, which covers north and central Georgia and embraces 110 worshiping communities. At the time of his election in June 2012, he had served 10 years as rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta. Prior to that, he was a school chaplain and on the staff of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City.

Since becoming bishop, Wright addressed the Georgia legislature about gun control, spoke up for Medicaid expansion and has been a vocal and active opponent of the death penalty in Georgia. In commemoration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, he prayed with a City of Atlanta sanitation crew before taking an early morning shift on the back of a city garbage truck. In January 2015, he was named among the 100 Most Influential Georgians by GeorgiaTrend magazine.

Wright, 51, was born in a Roman Catholic orphanage in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was adopted at 9 months of age. After graduating high school, he served five years in the U.S. Navy. While attending Howard University in Washington, D.C., he worked as a child advocate for two mayors. He earned an M.Div. from Virginia Theological Seminary, and he has been awarded honorary doctor of divinity degrees by the Virginia seminary, Sewanee: The University of the South, and General Theological Seminary.

He is married to Beth-Sarah Wright, Ph.D., and they have a grown daughter and four school-age children.

These lectures provide both theological and practical conversation for why Christians engage upheaval as a necessary good. More specifically, Paul's experiences of upheaval positively generate his pluralistic vision of the Church. And an apocalyptic vision, spawned by John of Patmos, provides a way for communities in the 21st Century to navigate their way through nightmares to beatific vision.

The Paddock Lectures 2014 were cancelled.

The Paddock Lectures, November 5 and 6, 2014

The How of Theology and Ministry

This year's lecturer will be Professor Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School's Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law. Beginning in the Fall of 2014, he will assume a Chair in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Hauerwas has sought to recover the significance of the virtues for understanding the nature of the Christian life. This search has led him to emphasize the importance of the church, as well as narrative for understanding Christian existence. His work cuts across disciplinary lines as he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics. He was named "America's Best Theologian" by Time Magazine in 2001. His book A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (1981), was selected as one of the 100 most important books on religion of the 20th Century. His recent work includes Approaching the End: Eschatological Reflections on Church, Politics, and Life (2013).

The lectures will address the relationship between the work of theology and parish ministry. Hauerwas sees the very question of how the two are related to be a problematic diagnosis showing as it does the operating presumption that theology is not itself a ministerial task. He addresses this by briefly tracing the historical situation that led to theology becoming a scientific discipline in the modern university. Hauerwas then concludes by arguing the task of the contemporary theologian, therefore, is to help ministers and lay people recover the significance of Christian concepts by learning to speak Christian.

Lecture #1: Wednesday, November 5, 2014 2:00 - 3:00 pm $35.00

Lecture #2: Thursday, November 6, 2014 2:00 - 3:00 pm $35.00

Early Bird Discount for Both Lectures available until October 31, 2014 - $60.00

This year's lecturer was Dr. Elizabeth Drescher, PH.D. a scholar, researcher, and author of the forthcoming book Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s Nones, as well as Tweet If You ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation, and, with Keith Anderson. Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible. Dr. Drescher is a frequent contributor to the online magazine Religion Dispatches. Her work has been highlighted by the Atlantic Monthly, the Daily Beast, the Utne Reader, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Australian Radio National, the BBC, CNN, State of Belief Radio,and other national and international news outlets.

Dr. Drescher has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for the study of spirituality in everyday life and teaching in religion and spirituality including, most recently, a journalism fellowship from the Templeton Foundation for the Social Science Research Council’s “New Directions in the Study of Prayer” initiative.

Elizabeth is a scholar-in-residence in the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Réal and faculty member in religous studies and pastoral ministries at Santa Clara University. She lives with her family in Northern California’s Silicon Valley.Learn more about Elizabeth's research, writing and speaking at www.elizabethdrescher.com and follow her on Twitter @edrescherphd.

At the beginning of 2012, Newsweek marked “the rise of the Nones” as one of the most significant trends defining contemporary American culture, and a fall 2013 study by the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life verified this assessment with a survey that showed that one in five Americans have no religious affiliation. Importantly, Nones—people who answer “none” when asked with what religion they identify”—are generally not atheists or even agnostics. The majority are so-called “Religious Nones,” believers who do not identify or affiliate with traditional religious institutions. Further, most come from Christian backgrounds. Indeed, twenty percent of people raised in the Episcopal Church will become Nones as adults. Their spiritual lives are, thus, shaped by their background as well as by the diverse religious, antireligious, secular, and media rich culture of the United States. This talk draws upon original survey data and interviews to explore the spiritual lives of Nones as they intersect with and diverge from traditional religions.

Over the past decade, new digital media and mobile technologies have change not merely how we communicate; they have reshaped how we relate to one another, how we understand concepts such as authority and community, and how we conceive of ourselves as distinct individuals. While many have described this cultural change as “revolutionary,” it can in fact be seen as more of a “reformation”—a paradoxical return to premodern modes of living and relating that run deeply through Christian traditions. This lecture will explore the premodern “habitus” of Anglican/Episcopal tradition—spiritually integrated life practices that shape much of the enduring character of the church and that have prepared the us to engage in digitally-integrated culture in ways that were rarely possible in the broadcast age that the world is rapidly leaving behind. The lecture considers how the premodern roots of Anglican tradition, transplanted in early modern American soil, support ongoing engagement with the growing population of the religiously unaffiliated.

Over the last two years, NASA scientists identified more and more planets that may be habitable for earthlings. While these findings invite provocative questions on the core biblical and doctrinal claims of Christianity, this lecture will employ them primarily as metaphors for the ways in which digitally-integrated postmodern culture is itself expanding the universe of belief, spirituality, and institutional religion across geographies and generations. How, the lecture asks, can communities of faith minister in a world of dramatically expanded religious, spiritual, and epistemological boundaries? How can our understanding of the changing universe help to prepare us to be the church of the future?

From Tweet If You ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation:

“The Church is at a critical juncture as it attempts to respond to dramatic cultural changes related to new mobile, digital social media. Some of those changes are wonderfully liberating, inviting creative involvement in the practice of faith and the nurturing of community by believers and seekers of all stripes around the globe. Others, such as the restructuring of concepts of privacy, self-presentation, and relationship that seem to undermine notions of interpersonal, communal, and spiritual intimacy that are at the heart of much Christian practice, feel more troubling. Threatening, even.”

We welcome updates on your ministry and life. Please send news to the Alumni Office at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We look forward to hearing from you!

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In addition, alumni have opportunities to benefit from educational and enrichment experiences offered by the Seminary, including:

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Please feel free to call, email, or come to our offices with any news, updates, class notes, as well as your ideas, concerns, and suggestions.

Throughout the year, Alumni are welcome to submit their nomination for seats either on the Alumni Executive Committee or the Board of Trustees, to the Alumni Office at 440 West 21 Street, NY, NY 10011 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Throughout the year, Alumni are welcome to submit their nomination for seats either on the Alumni Executive Committee or the Board of Trustees, to the Alumni Office at 440 West 21 Street, NY, NY 10011 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I am grateful to the current members of the Alumni Executive Committee for inviting me to run for a position on that committee.

As a 2013 M.Div. graduate of General, my seminary years were marked by significant transitions: faculty and staff members came and went, buildings were sold, and construction noise was a part of daily life. By many measures, it was not an easy time to be a GTS student. Yet, in spite of all the difficulties, I had an incredible, formative, and life-altering experience at General Seminary. I came to appreciate the things that make General exceptional: from the buzz of the city to the rhythm of daily worship. But more than anything else, my positive experience was shaped by the people who walked that journey with me—people with a common love for General, a common love for the life of the Church, and a common love for Jesus Christ.

My affection for General and the people I met along the way is why I agreed to run for a position on the Alumni Executive Committee. General’s greatest assets aren’t in real estate, but rather in people. It’s relationships with those people that I want to foster and represent.

I look forward to the opportunity to give back to General a small portion of all that General gave to me.

The Reverend Judith Semple Greene, ’96, Retired

It is an honor to be nominated by the Alumni Executive Committee to run for a position on the committee. I thank my colleagues for this opportunity.

Coming from the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis in 1995, I transferred to GTS my senior year. I am very grateful for that year. I focused on Anglican studies.

The year 1995-1996 was seminal. It gave shape to my subsequent ministry in the parish. I credit my excellent professors who gave me tools of liturgical and musical expression that I used later in the parish, and when serving as Chair of the Commission on Liturgy and Music in the Diocese of Connecticut under Bishops Andrew D. Smith and Ian T. Douglas. Anglican Moral Theology helped me see and respond to the neighbor set before me. I became aware of how important it is for the Episcopal Church to show leadership in the world. Through a study of Romans I saw that Paul spoke God’s truth to very different cultures. A great variety of cultures surrounds us in New York City, such a benefit. What I learned is still essential for ministry. Today, as opportunities for full-time parish ministry diminish, we think more and more outside the parish to nourish priest and parish. That is the perspective I bring.

Subsequently, I served in parishes in the Dioceses of Lexington and Connecticut and retired after twelve years as Rector of Christ Church Tashua Trumbull, Connecticut, October 2011.

I return to New York City, often. In 2001, I responded to the invitation to serve at Ground Zero immediately after the incident, and was later certified a Red Cross Chaplain at Ground Zero.

My hope is that all current students of General, in whatever course or program, share a similarly wholesome and profound experience.

I graduated from GTS in 2013 (M.Div) and 2014 (S.T.M.). I am originally from El Salvador. I am an English and Spanish speaker. A retired Telecommunications Engineer from AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Alcatel-Lucent in 2012 after 27 years of service.

Currently, I am serving in the Diocese of Newark as priest-in-charge of Holy Trinity in West Orange, NJ. When I first came to Holy Trinity in 2013, there were concerns about the future of the church. After implementing some changes in the worshiping and functioning of the church the mood started to change. I introduced new programs such as God and Science Program, English as a Second Language (ESL), and tutoring sessions which have brought new energy into the community. In the last few months, I have partnered with local leaders to formulate the formation of the West Orange Hispanic Foundation (WOHF).

Since 2009, I have been teaching at the Newark School of Theology teaching classes to candidates to the permanent deaconate and ministers in our area. At GTS, I have taught classes in Liturgical Spanish for Church Leaders since 2012.

I would like to offer my spiritual gifts and managerial skills to the Alumni/ae Executive Committee in order to continue moving forward the efforts of the Committee in support of the GTS family.

I attended General Theological Seminary for two years in a full immersion of Anglican Studies beginning in 1982. I did the best learning of my life in those two years and that learning went far beyond academics to include a significant time of spiritual and ecclesiastical formation. After leaving GTS I served as a curate in two churches in Manhattan. The last five years were at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. In 1991 I was called as rector of Christ Church, Georgetown in Washington D.C. where I served for over 23 years until retirement in 2014. I also served as a Chaplain for 13 years in the District of Columbia Army National Guard with a deployment to Iraq in 2005-06. I came out of retirement after seven months at the invitation of the Dean to serve as the interim vicar of the Washington National Cathedral.

I served on the Alumni Executive Committee for over ten years, with two terms as President ending in 2013. That was a period of huge transition and change at GTS with financial pressures, serious building concerns and renovations, and a student body that for years was asked to sacrifice by living in and through all of this. I have also supported GTS financially for many years. I believe it is important for all alumni/ae to seriously consider that responsibility.

General Seminary now faces another time of serious challenge and rebuilding. I firmly believe that the future of GTS is vital to the Episcopal Church. It is of paramount importance that GTS not just survive, but thrive and soar as a place where people are formed in Christian faith in the Episcopal/ Anglican tradition, and educated to lead our church in the decades ahead. I use the word ‘love’ with care. I can say without reservation that I do love General Seminary, for all that it has been for almost 200 years---and for all that it can be as we look to the future—together! And I believe we ought to do this trusting in God's leading, and with hearts full of gratitude and hope.

My commitment to General is strong and abiding. In 1974, I was the first woman granted the seminary’s M.Div., an honor I share with the late Page Bigelow.

General prepared me well for my forty plus years of active ministry. A ministry begun as a member of the campus ministry team at Vassar and Bard College, continued as a pastoral assistant at a large suburban parish. In 1978 I followed my passion for health care chaplaincy and became a Board Certified Chaplain.

The majority of my ministry has been as a Chaplain, first in long-term care settings with Greenwich Chaplaincy Services of Greenwich, CT and then as Director of Spiritual Services for Episcopal Retirement Homes in Cincinnati, OH. Returning to NYC with my husband in 2000, I worked for 9 years with the Health Care Chaplaincy, completing my time in New York as Director of Pastoral Care and Education at St. Luke’s- Roosevelt Hospital.

Now residing in Greenville, SC I made a career shift and serve as Executive Director of Canterbury Counseling Center, a non-profit pastoral counseling center. My role with Canterbury has been to transform the center from one in jeopardy of failing to a center now celebrating its 10th Anniversary dedicated to serving the needs of a growing community.

It is an honor to be considered for service to GTS as a member of the Board of Trustees. Early in my ministry I served from 1977 to 1997 on the Alumni Executive Committee. This allowed me insight into the seminary under different deanships. Now General stands at a pivotal point in its history. This calls for action that looks to the future while honoring the past. This is an opportunity for strong and creative service. I know the hand of God and the prayers of the faithful alumni are with General.

Not a day has gone by since my graduation in 1984 that I have not drawn on the academic foundation laid in my years at General Seminary or the spiritual formation of its daily round of worship and prayer. If I can be of service to this unique and beloved institution through participation on the Board of Trustees, then I embrace the opportunity.

In addition to my love for General, I bring to the table the experience of thirty one years of ordained ministry exercised at both parish and diocesan level in three different dioceses of this church; twenty years as a bishop, having served as Bishop Suffragan of New York from 1996 through 2011; and at present as Bishop-in-Charge of St. James-in-the-City in Los Angeles. I have served The Episcopal Church nationally as a member of Executive Council, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music, and the House of Bishops Theology Committee.

Themes which have engaged me throughout are education, congregational growth and social justice, as well as fostering connection throughout the Anglican Communion.

My prayer is that as a trustee I might be a bridge person and a reconciler and also a participant in moving General into a brighter and more fruitful future.

Throughout the year, Alumni are welcome to submit their nomination for seats either on the Alumni Executive Committee or the Board of Trustees, to the Alumni Office at 440 West 21 Street, NY, NY 10011 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I am a graduate of the Class of 2004 and am currently serving as Vicar of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Missouri. Prior to serving in St. Louis, my husband, the Rev. Joe Chambers and I served in Columbia, Missouri following joyful service in my sponsoring Diocese of New York.

September 11, 2001, marked the first full day of classes for the Class of 2004. The events of that day and following shaped the next three years of our priestly formation in ways that we could never have imagined. These years at GTS were intense, and simultaneously, for me, filled with deep fulfillment and the blessing of constant revelation. I am grateful to GTS for so many things, especially for all of the ways on which I learned to meet the deep darknesses of 9/11 and to confront them with Christ's light and peace through theological reflection, prayer, and diverse relationships.

I am pained to look upon the seminary now, saturated with deep conflict. I am afraid for us, and I am fearful about serving on the Alumni Executive Committee right now. Yet I have faith that nothing will be impossible with God and that the AEC seeks faithfully to represent and share the very best of what we have learned together from our time on the Close for the good of all, past, present, and future. I wish to walk with GTS and with my fellow alumnae and alumni to support the work of reconciliation during this anxious and uncertain time.

I am a member of the Class of 1996. My years and friendships at GTS formed and inform me to this day. The Alumni/ae Executive Committee has been a tribute to General as we have worked together in this current situation. I would be honored to continue to work with this distinguished group. My parish in Texas sent a seminarian to GTS, and I would like to do more to help build a strong future here. While at General, I took advantage of the diverse offerings available and have continued to respond with interest to the new realities of theological education in our church and in the world. Directly upon graduation, I served churches in El Salvador, in congregations as well as being Director of Theological education there. I taught Socioloy of Religion and other basic courses for the Centro Anglicano de Estudios Teologicos. After El Salvador, I worked for almost eight years as Senior Assistant at St. John's, Lafayette Square, and have served as Rector at Trinity Houston for seven. All these years I have been directly involved in seminarian formation. I believe my work with endowed parishes, capital campaigns, congregational development, and international theological formation, as well as my enthusiasm for new possibilities, will serve me well in this capacity.

After graduating from GTS I served in the Diocese of Atlanta as associate rector of St. Peter's, Rome and St. Anne's, Atlanta before serving as rector of Incarnation in Highlands, NC. I am currently the first rector of Saint Benedict's Church and School in Smyrna, Georgia. I have also spent several years working with the non-profit, Kids4Peace International, which is an interfaith peace and reconciliation program working with children in Palestine, Israel, and the U.S. (www.k4p.org). Through all these experiences I have raised money for building campaigns, feasibility studies, operational budgets, and dealt with interesting financial structures. I would love to use these experiences to benefit General's efforts in continuing to develop alumni support for our future.

I graduated from GTS in 1992 and served several years of my ministry in my home Diocese of New York. Now having lived in Los Angeles for 11 years, I bring a broad bi-coastal perspective. As a Dean of a new Cathedral, I have had to use skills of entrepreneurship and creativity to help forge a new identity for our congregation emerging out of our existing heritage, in a beautiful old structure, in an exciting and changing neighborhood. I also serve with another Dean in a a co-leadership team, so collaboration, compromise and listening are daily practices. I served on the Board of Trustees for Bloy House, a regional Episcopal seminary in Southern California, for three years. I served on the Search Committee for the Bishops Suffragan. I currently serve on the Board of Directors for the Guibord Center, housed at St. John's, an interfaith center seeking to foster dialog and reconciliation between religious traditions. For six years I was a member of the Commission on ministry and for two years mentored a Fresh Start training group for newly ordained clergy.

I believe this is a key time to participate in the life of our seminary. General Seminary exists because f the vision and generosity of people such as Clement Clarke Moore, and Bishop John Henry Hobart. The gifts that provided for General at its founding must still form the holy ground on which we stand today. To that end, a chief task of the Board at this time is to seek reconciliation among all the stakeholders of the seminary as we envision our future. I would bring skills of direct and honest communication as well as generous collaboration to the Board, all necessary for such reconciliation to take place. I understand that while I would participate in the Board seeking the good of the seminary as a whole, I would specifically represent the concerns and voice of alumni/ae.

While we remain hopeful that our Risen Lord, the Good Shepherd of the sheep will lead us into a strong future, he calls us actively to engage in the difficult work of reconciliation and rebuilding. I would be honored to play a role in this work as a member of the Board of Trustees.

I was in the graduating class of 1995. I was raised up out of the Diocese of Washington where I returned after graduation, was ordained and served for 14 years. Currently, I am the rector of Holy Trinity Old Swedes parish in Wilmington, Delaware. My reason for wishing to serve on the Board of Trustees is that I am dedicated to the seminary and its mission. The current crisis does not diminish my dedication. I hold the opinion that the seminary still has particular gifts to offer the Episcopal Church in the formation of faithful, learned leaders. I hope my gifts and skills can be helpful to the work of healing, reconciliation and renewal that is required to move beyond the current crisis and carry out our mission.

I am honored to be considered for service as an alumni representative on the Board of Trustees. I attended General from the fall of 2009 to the spring of 2012 and earned both an M.Div, cum laude, and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction. While there I was involved in Community Council and served as an elected representative of my class during the seminary's 2010 financial crisis. Our class was praised for its commitment to General during that time of uncertainty. Notably, not one of us left General, and our esprit d'corps was regarded as a source of stability and inspiration as we rode the roller coaster of the next three years as General underwent sweeping changes to its financial and physical life. Since graduating I have served as the Province VI representative to the Alumni Executive Committee.

Now 37 years of age, and originally from Michigan, I enjoyed a first career leading operations, marketing, and finance for a variety of small companies in Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles, including a firm of my own. I studied management theory in undergrad and also gave two years of military service following 9/11. I was ordained from All Saints' Beverly Hills in the Diocese of Los Angeles and served as Curate of Saint James' in Lancaster, Pennsylvania before moving to Denver. In addition to serving the AEC, I currently serve as a board member of a professional choir based in Denver and have served on a variety of boards in the past.

I am encouraged by the initial work toward re-imagining General's curriculum that has been accomplished in the last year. At the same time, I am concerned about General's seeming lack of commitment to some of the core principles that have guided it for almost 200 years. As General recovers from its current crisis and continues to rebuild its product and reputation, I hope my voice can help the BOT deliberate with the perspective of recent/current students clearly in mind as it prepares to carry General into the next 200 years.